Ashes on Wall Street

I once wrote articles for my parish’s newsletter. I wrote this article for Ash Wednesday in February of 2001. Strange to read this looking back knowing that only 7 months later the World Trade Center would fall and Trinity Church would be right in the center of it all:

Ashes on Wall Street
Editorial by Rick Parker

Trinity Church in New York City is located in the financial district in
Lower Manhattan. In an article that primarily features their new Labyrinth they report something I find astonishing. On Ash Wednesday of last year 14,650 people showed up for the imposition of ashes! Think for a moment. 14,650 people in one day. Think again. 14,650 people on Wall Street coming into the house of God. Not for food. Not for drink. Not for some guilt relieving optimistic sermon, so they can return to their day of money trading with a clear conscience, but to be told, “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Not the most uplifting message for the day.

I can’t guess for sure what it means when something like that happens in what is easily the financial epicenter of the world, but it does make you wonder. Is there a connection between all that money and greed we associate Wall Street with and some desire to escape, if even for thirty minutes into the presence of God, or is it the contrast that makes God’s presence so much more clear? Perhaps it’s somehow akin to impoverished third-world areas where the Gospel spreads faster than anywhere in the western industrialized world. Maybe it’s those places which seem most void of Christ’s teaching where God’s message rings the loudest. One thing is for certain; it’s a good thing that church is there for those who need it.

How does this compare to Saint Julian’s? How does it compare to us? Are we really that different from those in Lower Manhattan? What does Ash Wednesday mean to you and me? Living away from the urban bustle and mega-corporate high rises and all the other cliché symbols of human hubris, are we less burdened by the harsh reality of “returning to dust?” Where do all those people go the rest of the year after an afternoon getting “ashed” at Trinity Church? Where will we go? What will we do?

Ash Wednesday begins a forty day walk to the holiest week in the Christian calendar. When we begin that walk we can keep in mind its destination–the Cross–which is where the rest of the journey begins.

[St. Julian’s Messenger, 14 February, 2001]